How To Advertise A Local Business On Facebook

Facebook has become the #1 place for local businesses to get in front of their audience.

Anybody or any business that has a Facebook Page can create highly targeted Facebook ads that deliver big results.

We’re going to walk you through how to create a Facebook Ad Campaign for a local business, that will not only generate brand awareness, but also get people through your door and boost sales!

The three main reasons why Facebook Ads can be so profitable for local businesses are:

They can be highly targeted to a specific audience. Location, Age, Gender, Interests etc.

They are not intrusive or annoying. In fact, when done right, most people won’t realise it’s an Ad.

They contain a call to action button, which gets your audience to take instant action on an offer or promotion.

Here are our top tips for creating profitable Facebook Ads to promote your business to people in your local area:

CREATE AN OFFER

In order to grab your audiences attention as they scroll through their newsfeed, you need to provide them with an offer that sparks intrigue and makes them want to take action to redeem the offer.

Whether it’s a one week free trial at a gym, a 20% discount at your store, or a free consultation and quote – it needs to be valuable in order to get them through your door!

It’s always best to create multiple ads, with different offers,to test which one is performing best. When your ad campaign is running, you can watch your results, and optimize your ads depending on which offer is getting better traction.

For example, If you were to create Ads for a cafe you could test ‘Buy one get one FREE coffee’ V ‘FREE Muffin with any large coffee’

CREATE AN APPEALING AD

There are 4 major components to creating a well received Facebook Ad:

The Ad Image

The Ad Copy

The Call To Action

Relevancy

Ad Images

Avoid using stock photos when it comes to advertising for your local business. If you have photos of your products and services, use these!

It gives your prospects a taste of what to expect!

It’s also great if you can include your Logo and text overlay repeating your offer, just like this –

Canva is a great resource to create personalised and professional Facebook Ad Images.

Ad Copy

Write ad copy that really speaks to your target audience. Know exactly who your talking to, and make the ad speak to them in a conversational way.

Here are some easy to follow steps when it comes to creating sales copy:

Point out who your message is for

Identify their problem

Talk about why what they’re currently doing to solve their problem won’t work

Tell them how you discovered what DOES work

Tell them how they can get it

When using the Power Editor to create your Facebook Ads, (depending on your Ad objective) you’re not limited to how many characters you use in your text. This allows you to create an ad that is more conversational, and looks less ‘selly’.

Call to Action

The greatest thing about Facebook Ads is that you can get your audience to take instant action.

Think about what action you want them to take in order to claim your offer.

Relevancy

The more relevant your ad is to your chosen target audience, the better results you will receive. This is for 2 reasons:

Facebook only delivers ads that are relevant to an audience. The more relevant your ad, the more people Facebook will deliver your ad to.

If your ad is relevant to your audience, they will be more likely to take action and claim your offer.

Let’s continue with our example of an Ad for a Cafe:

Because of the nature of a cafe, you would choose the ‘Claim An Offer’ objective, this means you are limited to the text you can write in your Ad… But even with limited text, you can still create Ad copy that speaks to a target audience.

GET YOUR TARGETING RIGHT!

When setting your audience targeting for your local business, firstly you want to set the audience location to your physical address with a maximum distance that you feel will appeal to people within this area.

You then may also choose to narrow your audience to be more specific to your niche. Whether that be people of a certain age, gender or have specific interests.

Choosing a specific audience will help you create Ad Copy and Ad Images that are more relevant.

It’s important to remember that you want your targeting to be niche, but not too niche. Aim to have a minimum reach of 40,000 people.

With our cafe offer to mums, we would target women with children in the local area, and make the offer only valid Monday to Friday during school & work hours…

This is a win win situation – It’s the quiet time at your cafe when your looking to boost sales & It’s the time that mums are looking to get out of the house.

SET YOUR BUDGET

When you create your Ad campaign you choose a daily budget. The minimum daily ad spend is $5 per day and your budget can be increased or decreased as the campaign progresses.

In order to achieve a good daily reach we like to set a minimum of at least $10/day.

Your campaign can also be paused and restarted at any time. This is great if you only have a limited number of offers available – so when you get too many people claiming your offer, simply pause the campaign.

CREATE A HIGH CONVERTING LANDING & THANK YOU PAGE

Where are you going to send your client when they click on your ad?

This will ultimately depend on your objective and what products and services your business delivers.

But in most cases, you will send your audience to a Landing Page.

There should be several elements and features on your landing page that encourage users to convert:

Images or Video

More information about your offer

Information about your business

Opt in form for your client to sign up, book, or claim an offer

LeadPages is an AMAZING resource that can help you create Landing Pages with ease!! No experience required (I’m not kidding)…

Thank You Page

Once your lead signs up & claims your offer, send them to a thank you page.

You can use a Thank You page to provide a bonus offer, get them to like your Facebook Page or have a countdown timer if you want them to take action within a specific timeframe.

Again, LeadPages can be used to create Thank You pages – and it’s really easy to edit their templates.

Back to our Cafe example – with Lead Pages you can create Landing Pages where your leads will enter their name and email address in order to redeem your offer. You can then automate emails to be sent to your customers with a downloadable coupon or text saying ‘present this email/coupon at the counter to redeem your free coffee’.

Are you starting to see how Facebook could be a game changer for your business?… and we’ve only just scratched the surface!

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Hey! I'm Jess

Social Media Strategist & Facebook Marketing Mentor

I've got a passion for helping local business owners master the art of Facebook! I'm taking what I've learnt, and what I've taught in my live Facebook classes, and sharing it with you online.Read more...